BISE result fiasco: IT consultant arrested on charges of embezzlement

The consultant had previously been dismissed from other institutions over corruption charges.

LAHORE: An accountability court on Saturday handed over Dr Majid Naeem, former IT consultant for the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for one day on physical remand.

Naeem would be produced before the relevant court on November 14, where NAB may request an extension in his physical remand.

Naeem was arrested on charges of embezzlement of Rs2,797,850 from the Punjab University’s funds. A reference was filed against Naeem, a former principal of the Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT), in the accountability court for misusing his authority.

According to the reference, the accused during his tenure withdrew the above mentioned amount from the university funds without approval of the competent authority.

Earlier, Naeem, the accused, had filed an application in the accountability court under section 265 K of PPC, seeking acquittal in the reference, submitting that he was innocent and clean handed. The court on March 15 dismissed the application.

Naeem had previously been dismissed from the University of Engineering and Technology Lahore and Government College University Lahore over corruption charges.

Judicial commission proceeding: Day 2

Earlier in the day, Naeem became the main focus during the proceeding of the judicial commission, conducting the inquiry into the Intermediate result fiasco, on Saturday.

All serving and suspended officials of the Lahore Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), who appeared before the commission, held Naeem responsible for the mishap. However, Lahore District Coordination Officer Ahad Cheema, who supervised the process of computerisation of the results, termed Naeem as an “honest and competent man”.

Some of the BISE officials also informed the court that Naeem was given this task as a favour from Cheema.

BISE Controller Examination Anwar Farooq told the commission that the result of 80,000 students, out of 124,653 students was wrongly reported. Farooq also said the result of 21,770 subjective papers and 143,934 objective papers was misrepresented. He too held Naeem and his hiring authority responsible for the irregularities.

BISE Chairman Allah Bukhsh submitted that Cheema hired Majid and they both were responsible for what happened. Justice Shahid Saeed asked Buksh to come with his written statement in the next hearing, which will take place on Monday.

Suspended BISE chairman Akram Kashmiri said he was illegally suspended as he had no role in the matter. He said the system was enforced by incompetent people, who could not handle the matter. He said computerized system was better but the software introduced by Naeem was defective.

Akram also said he had verbally conveyed his reservations to the concerned authorities but to no avail. Justice Saeed told him that he should have informed them through written complaint.

Aslam Gujjar, president of BISE employees union, informed the commission that he had been pointing out the faults in the system but his complaints were always ignored.

Gujjar also presented the result card of student Shehzad Ahmed, son of Akhtar Gull, according to which Ahmed failed in the exam but it was later proved that he passed the exam by securing 454 marks. Ahmed committed suicide after receiving his incorrect result.

Naeem, in his defence said that he had not taken a single penny for his services. He however claimed that he paid a huge amount of money to make the program successful. Justice Shahid, in response to Naeem’s claims, asked for his NTN number and his tax payment details. To which Naeem said he had paid nothing this year as he had no income.

Cheema defending Naeem said he had been asking him about the project and every time he found him a competent and honest man. He said Naeem had successfully compiled two results in the past with not even 25% of fault. Cheema also laid the blame on a mafia at the BISE which was trying to fail the system.

Responding to a query, Cheema said that he had nothing to do with Naeem’s hiring.

The BISE employees also presented a copy of a circular issued by the HEC, which states that those hindering the process of computerisation of the system would be penalised according to the commission’s rules.